Best way to scout new youth intake players from other countries?

I always send a scout to a country when the date comes up for their new youth intake to see if theres any stars in the making generated, but is there a better/quicker alternative to this? Maybe by searching youth contracts on the transfer centre?

Player search, max age 15, select all players, scout report. I've just done it and found a few 4star potential regens, don't think it gets all of them, but if your scouting knowledge is good it'll get most.

If I'm in the position to do it (i.e., established at a larger club, could buy up talent, etc.), than I'll usually go team-by-team and get any youth product that's young AND seems worthwhile (Sort by age, either get reports on the most expensive or the ones with no cost assigned yet, depending on the country and how close to the date you're looking). It takes some time to go team-by-team, but it covers those odd 16-year olds that sometimes get thrown into the mix. It isn't foolproof, since you could miss a player who's very good but not got a high cost, but it's still a pretty wide net.

Depending on how thorough I want to be, what country we're talking about, and how good my team is, I also sometimes will scout the second division this way.

for some reason my scouts seem to come back with loads of french newgens but barely any other countries, I mean they can't all be that rubbish can they? I mean it's picking up 1/2* rated French guys - even though all the other nations have had their new youth, it's messed up.

What you're doing is definitely the safest and surest way, Shane.

The way rimm! explains it - by doing a player search - you might just be very unsatisfied, even if your scouting knowledge is reasonably good but not perfect. I did a quick comparison in one of my savegames and the result shocked me a bit. With the example of the non-playable country Turkey, where I have a 72% scouting knowledge, I did a quick player search with the following filter: max 15 years of age, based in Turkey. The database contained a total of 17 players that fit the profile, but the ingame search would only show me two (!) of them despite the reasonably good knowledge of the country.

I don't know exactly how the list of players that can be found with the player-search is created, so maybe it's due to the fact that my last scouting visit to Turkey was some time ago. Maybe someone can clarify that point? In any case, you should never blindly trust the player search, because the list will likely never be complete.